URBAN ISSUESA Housing Solution Gone Awry
New York Times
In the early 1970s, the architect and city planner Oscar Newman came forth with a book and theory called "Defensible Space," which relied in part on data from New York City public housing to propose a set of design solutions to the mounting problems of urban living.

ENVIRONMENT & ECOLOGYWalking Could Produce Energy via Shoes
Giant Freakin Robot
There's no better power than people power! A team of engineering students at Rice University in Houston, Texas have invented a shoe that can harness the energy of everyday walking to, theoretically, power small devices such as cell phones or mp3 players.

URBAN ISSUESCities Don't "Aspire" to Gentrification
Better Institutions
In a recent article posted on New Geography, Aaron M. Renn asks what seems to be a fairly straightforward question: "Why Gentrification?" But unlike most writing on the subject, the question isn't why it happens or how to avoid it, but why cities aspire to it.